Elmer Gantry (23 page)

Not till one in the morning, sitting in flabby dejection, did he have his story shaped and water-tight.

It was an heroic spectacle, that of the Reverend Elmer Gantry climbing from the second-story balcony through Sharon’s
window, tiptoeing across the room, plumping on his knees by her bed, and giving her a large plashy kiss.

“I am not asleep,” she observed, in tones level as a steel rail, while she drew the comforter about her neck. “In fact
I’m awake for the first time in two years, my young friend. You can get out of here. I won’t tell you all I’ve been
thinking, but among other things you’re an ungrateful dog that bit the hand that took you out of the slimy gutter, you’re a
liar, an ignoramus, a four-flusher, and a rotten preacher.”

“By God, I’ll show—”

But she giggled, and his plan of action came back to him.

He sat firmly on the edge of the bed, and calmly he remarked:

“Sharon, you’re a good deal of a damn fool. You think I’m going to deny flirting with Lily. I won’t take the trouble to
deny it! If you don’t appreciate yourself, if you don’t see that a man that’s ever associated with you simply couldn’t be
interested in any other woman, then there’s nothing I can say. Why, my God, Shara, you know what you are! I could no more be
untrue to you than I could to my religion! As a matter of fact—Want to know what I was saying to Lily, to Miss
Anderson?”

“I do not!”

“Well, you’re going to! As I came up the hall, her door was open, and she asked me to come in-she had something to ask
me. Well, seems the poor young woman was wondering if her music was really up to your greatness—that’s what she herself
called it—especially now that the Jordan Tabernacle will give you so much more power. She spoke of you as the greatest
spiritual force in the world, and she was wondering whether she was worthy—”

“Um. She did, eh? Well, she isn’t! And she can stay fired. And you, my fine young liar, if you ever so much as look at
another wench again, I’ll fire you for keeps. . . . Oh, Elmer, how could you, beloved? When I’ve given you everything! Oh,
lie, lie, go on lying! Tell me a good strong lie that I’ll believe! And then kiss me!”

Banners, banners, banners lifting along the rafters, banners on the walls of the tabernacle, banners moving to the air
that was sifted in from the restless sea. Night of the opening of Waters of Jordan Tabernacle, night of the opening of
Sharon’s crusade to conquer the world.

The town of Clontar and all the resorts near by felt here was something they did not quite understand, something
marvelous and by all means to be witnessed; and from up and down the Jersey coast, by motor, by trolley, the religious had
come. By the time the meeting began all of the four thousand seats were filled, five hundred people were standing, and
outside waited a throng hoping for miraculous entrance.

The interior of the pier was barnlike; the thin wooden walls were shamelessly patched against the ravages of winter
storms, but they were hectic with the flags of many nations, with immense posters, blood-red on white, proclaiming that in
the mysterious blood of the Messiah was redemption from all sorrow, that in his love was refuge and safety. Sharon’s
pretentious white-and-gold pyramidal altar had been discarded. She was using the stage, draped with black velvet, against
which hung a huge crystal cross, and the seats for the choir of two hundred, behind a golden pulpit, were draped with
white.

A white wooden cross stood by the pulpit.

It was a hot night, but through the doors along the pier the cool breeze filtered in, and the sound of waters, the sound
of wings, as the gulls were startled from their roosts. Every one felt an exaltation in the place, a coming of marvels.

Before the meeting the gospel crew, back-stage, were excited as a theatrical company on a first night. They rushed with
great rapidity nowhere in particular, and tripped over each other, and muttered, “Say—gee—gee—” To the last, Adelbert Shoop
was giving needless instructions to the new pianist, who had been summoned by telegraph from Philadelphia, vice Lily
Anderson. She professed immense piety, but Elmer noted that she was a pretty fluffy thing with a warm eye.

The choir was arriving along with the first of the audience. They filtered down the aisle, chattering, feeling important.
Naturally, as the end of the pier gave on open water, there was no stage entrance at the back. There was only one door,
through which members of opera casts had been wont to go out to the small rear platform for fresh air between acts. The
platform was not connected with the promenade.

It was to this door that Sharon led Elmer. Their dressing-rooms were next to each other. She knocked—he had been sitting
with a Bible and an evening paper in his lap, reading one of them. He opened, to find her flaming with exultation, a joyous
girl with a dressing gown over her chemise. Seemingly she had forgotten her anger of the night.

She cried, “Come! See the stars!” Defying the astonishment of the choir, who were filing into the chorus dressing-room to
assume their white robes, she led him to the door, out on the railed platform.

The black waves glittered with lights. There was spaciousness and a windy peace upon the waters.

“Look! It’s so big! Not like the cities where we’ve been shut up!” she exulted. “Stars, and the waves that come clear
from Europe! Europe! Castles on a green shore! I’ve never been. And I’m going! And there’ll be great crowds at the ship to
meet me, asking for my power! Look!” A shooting star had left a scrawl of flame in the sky. “Elmer! It’s an omen for the
glory that begins tonight! Oh, dearest, my dearest, don’t ever hurt me again!”

His kiss promised it, his heart almost promised it.

She was all human while they stood fronting the sea, but half an hour later, when she came out in a robe of white satin
and silver lace, with a crimson cross on her breast, she was prophetess only, and her white forehead was high, her eyes were
strange with dreaming.

Already the choir were chanting. They were starting with the Doxology, and it gave Elmer a feeling of doubt. Surely the
Doxology was the end of things, not the beginning? But he looked impassive, the brooding priest, in frock coat and white bow
tie, portly and funereal, as he moved magnificently through the choir and held up his arms to command silence for his
prayer.

He told them of Sister Falconer and her message, of their plans and desires at Clontar, and asked for a minute of silent
prayer for the power of the Holy Ghost to descend upon the tabernacle. He stood back—his chair was up-stage, beside the
choir—as Sharon floated forward, not human, a goddess, tears thick in lovely eyes as she perceived the throng that had come
to her.

“My dear ones, it is not I who bring you anything, but you who in your faith bring me strength!” she said shakily. Then
her voice was strong again; she rose on the wave of drama.

“Just now, looking across the sea to the end of the world, I saw an omen for all of us—a fiery line written by the hand
of God—a glorious shooting star. Thus he apprized us of his coming, and bade us be ready. Oh, are you ready, are you ready,
will you be ready when the great day comes—”

The congregation was stirred by her lyric earnestness.

But outside there were less devout souls. Two workmen had finished polishing the varnished wooden pillars as the audience
began to come. They slipped outside, on the promenade along the pier, and sat on the rail, enjoying the coolness, slightly
diverted by hearing a sermon.

“Not a bad spieler, that woman. Puts it all over this guy Reverend Golding up-town,” said one of the workmen, lighting a
cigarette, keeping it concealed in his palm as he smoked.

The other tiptoed across the promenade to peer through the door, and returned mumbling. “Yuh, and a swell looker. Same
time though, tell you how I feel about it: woman’s all right in her place, but takes a real he-male to figure out this
religion business.”

“She’s pretty good though, at that,” yawned the first workman, snapping away his cigarette. “Say, let’s beat it. How
‘bout lil glass beer? We can go along this platform and get out at the front, I guess.”

“All right. You buying?”

The workmen moved away, dark figures between the sea and the doors that gave on the bright auditorium.

The discarded cigarette nestled against the oily rags which the workmen had dropped on the promenade, beside the flimsy
walls of the tabernacle. A rag glowed round the edges, wormlike, then lit in circling flame.

Sharon was chanting: “What could be more beautiful than a tabernacle like this, set on the bosom of the rolling deep? Oh,
think what the mighty tides have meant in Holy Writ! The face of the waters on which moved the spirit of Almighty God, when
the earth was but a whirling and chaotic darkness! Jesus baptized in the sweet waters of Jordan! Jesus walking the waves—so
could we today if we had but his faith! O dear God, strengthen thou our unbelief, give us faith like unto thine own!”

Elmer sitting back listening, was moved as in his first adoration for her. He had become so tired of her poetizing that
he almost admitted to himself that he was tired. But tonight he felt her strangeness again, and in it he was humble. He saw
her straight back, shimmering in white satin, he saw her superb arms as she stretched them out to these thousands, and in
hot secret pride he gloated that this beauty, beheld and worshiped of so many, belonged to him alone.

Then he noted something else.

A third of the way back, coming through one of the doors opening on the promenade, was a curl of smoke. He startled; he
almost rose; he feared to rouse a panic; and sat with his brain a welter of terrified jelly till he heard the scream
“Fire—fire!” and saw the whole audience and the choir leaping up, screaming—screaming— screaming—while the flimsy door-jamb
was alight and the flame rose fan-like toward the rafters.

Only Sharon was in his mind—Sharon standing like an ivory column against the terror. He rushed toward her. He could hear
her wailing, “Don’t be afraid! Go out slowly!” She turned toward the choir, as with wild white robes they charged down from
their bank of seats. She clamored, “Don’t be afraid! We’re in the temple of the Lord! He won’t harm you! I believe! Have
faith! I’ll lead you safely through the flames!”

But they ignored her, streamed past her, thrusting her aside.

He seized her arm. “Come here, Shara! The door at the back! We’ll jump over and swim ashore!”

She seemed not to hear him. She thrust his hand away and went on demanding, her voice furious with mad sincerity, “Who
will trust the Lord God of Hosts? Now we’ll try our faith! Who will follow me?”

Since two-thirds of the auditorium was to the shoreward side of the fire, and since the wide doors to the promenade were
many, most of the audience were getting safely out, save for a child crushed, a woman fainting and trampled. But toward the
stage the flames, driven by the sea-wind, were beating up through the rafters. Most of the choir and the audience down front
had escaped, but all who were now at the back were cut off.

He grasped Sharon’s arm again. In a voice abject with fear he shouted, “For God’s sake, beat it! We can’t wait!”

She had an insane strength; she thrust him away so sharply that he fell against a chair, bruising his knee. Furious with
pain, senseless with fear, he raged, “You can go to hell!” and galloped off, pushing aside the last of the hysterical choir.
He looked back and saw her, quite alone, holding up the white wooden cross which had stood by the pulpit, marching steadily
forward, a tall figure pale against the screen of flames.

All of the choir who had not got away remembered or guessed the small door at the back; so did Adelbert and Art Nichols;
and all of them were jamming toward it.

That door opened inward—only it did not open, with the score of victims thrust against it. In howling panic, Elmer sprang
among them, knocked them aside, struck down a girl who stood in his way, yanked open the door, and got through it . . . the
last, the only one, to get through it.

He never remembered leaping, but he found himself in the surf, desperately swimming toward shore, horribly cold, horribly
bound by heavy clothes. He humped out of his coat.

In the inside pocket was Lily Anderson’s address, as she had given it to him before going that morning.

The sea, by night, though it was glaring now with flames from above, seemed infinite in its black sightlessness. The
waves thrust him among the piles; their mossy slime was like the feel of serpents to his frantic hands, and the barnacles
cut his palms. But he struggled out from beneath the pier, struggled toward shore, and as he swam and panted, more and more
was the sea blood-red about him. In blood he swam, blood that was icy-cold and tumultuous and roaring in his ears.

His knees struck sand, and he crawled ashore, among a shrieking, torn, sea-soaked crowd. Many had leaped from the rail of
the promenade and were still fighting the surf, wailing, beaten. Their wet and corpselike heads were seen clearly in the
glare; the pier was only a skeleton, a cage round a boiling of flame, with dots of figures still dropping from the
promenade.

Elmer ran out a little into the surf and dragged in a woman who had already safely touched bottom.

He had rescued at least thirty people who had already rescued themselves before the reporters got to him and he had to
stop and explain the cause of the fire, the cost of the tabernacle, the amount of insurance, the size of the audience, the
number of souls revived by Miss Falconer during all her campaigns, and the fact that he had been saving both Miss Falconer
and Adelbert Shoop when they had been crushed by a falling rafter.

A hundred and eleven people died that night, including all of the gospel-crew save Elmer.

It was Elmer himself who at dawn found Sharon’s body lying on a floor-beam. There were rags of white satin clinging to
it, and in her charred hand was still the charred cross.